Happy 100th Anniversary! / July Story of the Month

One hundred years ago this month the short story "Some Ladies and Jurgen" was published in H.L. Mencken's The Smart Set. This story led (indirectly as we shall see) to the novel Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice and thence to the Cabellian explosion of the 1920s. So of course SL+J is the Story of the Month over at the Silver Stallion website, and we have provided links to four other related texts that shed light on the genesis of that monstrous clever fellow who is willing to try any draught once.

Here's the feature story (etc) on the front page of the Silver Stallion site:
http://www.silverstallion.karkeeweb.com/cabellmain.html

Once July is over the feature will be cached n the Notes and Essays section:
http://www.silverstallion.karkeeweb.com/notes_essays_main.html

The Cabellian Centenary proceeds apace!

I liked this story more than the novel — until recently.

I've still not read Jurgen, so perhaps there is more on this point in the novel, but I was pleased to find this hint at Cabell's understanding of Poetry as one of his three modes of Romance:

"... all poetry is man's rebellion against being what the creature unluckily is."(uttered by Koshchei, p 95)

And the entirety of Cabell's multiple recountings of his "method" are as amusing and enlightening as the story itself. Thank you for these!

>3 elenchus:

The text of that from Jurgen is

"And poetry is man's rebellion against being what he is."

And shortly we will approach the centenary of elenchus not having read Jurgen yet!

It's interesting, too, that Jurgen shapeshifts from poet to pawnbroker between the short story and the novel. Wirkman once noted Cabell's "Economic" theory of literature, and that change seems almost a mocking reference.

I am approaching that important centenary with appropriate sobriety and acceptance. I have a few years yet before the centenary of my birth, and that seems an appropriate deadline.